What happened on the battle of the leyte gulf in 1944?

Answer 1

The Japanese Combined Fleet sortied out in full strength in an attempt to crush General Douglas MacArthur's US 6th Army as it invaded the central Philippine Island of Leyte. To do this, they would have to lure away the powerful American carrier groups guarding the 6th's landings. The Japanese Navy knew that by this point in the war it was weaker than the Americans, and could not prevail over them in a straight-up fight. So, they relied on deception to carry out their plan.

The Japanese divided their fleet into three groups: the Northern, Center, and Southern. The Northern Force, under Jisaburo Ozawa, was the so-called 'decoy force.' It contained some of Japan's last aircraft carriers, including the Zuikaku, the last veteran of the Pearl Harbor attack. These carriers were largely empty as Japan's carrier based air arm was virtually nonexistent by then. But the Americans had no knowledge of this; they would believe Ozawa's ships were packed with aircraft and pilots. The other two Japanese groups, the Center and Southern, were composed of surface warships. The more powerful of the two, the Center force, was lead by Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita. No less than 5 battleships, including Yamato and Musashi, the largest and most powerful ever built, along with a huge assortment of cruisers and destroyers, were at his disposal. The Southern force, under Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura, was also powerful. It comprised the battleships Fuso and Yamashiro, along with an array of supporting cruisers and destroyers. The Japanese plan was to have the northern force attempt to distract the mighty US carrier fleet, under Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, long enough for the center and southern forces, maneuvering through the channels of the Philippine archipelago, to converge on Leyte Gulf and destroy MacArthur's helpless 6th Army as it unloaded from its transport ships.

At first the Japanese scheme appeared to have succeeded. Upon detecting Ozawa's carriers, Admiral Halsey rushed north with the bulk of his own, along with America's most powerful modern battleships. The Japanese center force, the Americans believed, was in full retreat after an airstrike destroyed the battleship Musashi. But Kurita's force only made a temporary withdrawal. After a short time, he swung back around and continued toward Leyte Gulf. There was little there to stop them. Meanwhile, the southern force, under VAdm Nishimura sailed straight into a carefully laid ambush under VAdm Jesse Oldendorf. Oldendorf's force included 6 battleships, many of them raised from the muck of Pearl Harbor, and a large grouping of cruisers, destroyers, and patrol boats. Although Nishimura detected Oldendorf's force on radar, he pressed on and was annihilated within minutes. The remnants of the southern force, now under the overall command of VAdm Shima, retreated and were no longer a factor in the battle.

However, with Halsey's carriers in the north and Oldendorf's battleships in the south, there was nothing to stop the renewed approach of Kurita's center force through the San Bernardino Strait. Only a few small groups under VAdm Clifton A.F. Sprague, centered around several small 'escort carriers,' was in a position to intervene. The American escort carriers were not like Halsey's giants. They were small, slow, and thin-skinned, with a limited compliment of aircraft and an even more limited assortment of weapons. They and their small escorts were horribly outclassed by the Japanese leviathans. But they were the only thing standing between the 250,000 men of the 6th Army and a bloody massacre at the hands of Kurita's murderous guns, so Sprague was determined to fight to the end. The American group that was closest to the Japanese ships was code-named "Taffy 3." Taffy 3 contained 6 escort carriers, 3 destroyers, and 4 destroyer escorts. By the end of the battle, two of the carriers and three of the other ships would be sunk. All the rest would sustain damage. For several hours on October 25, 1944, the American force would fight one of the most desperate naval actions in history. Their resistance was such that Admiral Kurita, unsure of what he was facing (he was haunted by doubts that Sprague's group was actually Halsey's 3rd Fleet), decided to order a retreat. The center force departed, and the 6th Army was spared. The Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of all time, had come to an end. It claimed the lives of 3,500 American and 10,000 Japanese sailors. Following this catastrophe, the Imperial Japanese Navy's surface force effectively ceased to exist.